Mills for rolling metal strip must have some provision for crowning the rolls in order to produce flat strip. Roll bending devices are widely used for that purpose as they can be adjusted to vary the roll crown. They are, however, expensive and cumbersome. Hydraulically inflated variable crown rolls have therefore been developed, such as the roll of Eibe U.S. Pat. No. 4,062,096, in which the roll crown is varied by increasing or decreasing the pressure at which the hydraulic fluid is injected between the roll arbor and its shell. Rolls so constructed have prooved satisfactory for many low and medium duty rolling operations. Hydraulic oil, however, is about 100 times softer than steel and under high external loading conditions, such as obtain in heavy duty rolling operations, a certain amount of crown collapse must be expected. The existing hydraulically inflatable crown rolls, sometimes called "soft" rolls, do not have enough operational crowning capability to withstand the heaviest rolling conditions.